by Dan O'Brien
A cry escaped his lips: the slate was cool to the touch.
As he looked down the decline of the rock wall, he felt his eyes grow heavy. He shook his head and then smacked himself hard; hard enough to draw turtle shells in front of his eyes. Sleep was not a possibility with the creature at his heels. He reached to his side and felt for the planedge, for his father’s weapon, and coughed hard. It had been there all along, he had not even thought to look for it when the creature attacked him; but he had it now. His mind recognized it. Pulling it from its sheath, he gripped it tightly in his hands as he blinked his eyes again.
The heaviness returned, fatigue gripping him as he struggled to remain awake. His eyes began to close. As he looked out at the sand plains beyond the rock wall, he missed the dark shadow that lurked just beyond the dunes.
*
E’Malkai walked alone on the tundra.
His mind no longer harbored the fear that it was trapped within Dok’Turmel. The wind blew against his face and he smiled beneath the wraps: the gales felt gentle. The people of the tundra referred to the stretch of frozen plains as the Barren Maiden, for no living thing prospered there. The thoughts that echoed in his mind were not of the shadow beast that pursued him, or the acquisition of power, but instead a mindless walk.
He had no thoughts.
Ghosts walked past him.
Images of things long forgotten, the tribes of the Re’klu’hereun and their totems of the Believer, of the Ai’mun’hereun, streamed past. He paid them no attention. E’Malkai saw people pass by, their arms waving at him as if they knew him, but the youth was not to be deterred.
He continued on as if he did not see them, their clear images passed into nothing; he never looked back. There was a purpose to his walking. It itched at the back of the youth’s mind and dawned on him as he saw the image of his father, Seth Armen, brother to the personification of the Gagnion’Fe’rein.
It was his father.
His sandy brown hair was pulled back and his face was exposed. The thin beard that lined his jaw was full despite its length. His blue eyes were like frozen ice, gentle yet firm. He wore faded gray wraps that hugged his body. A white cloak hung around his shoulders, hiding his lithe frame. He smiled. The whiteness of his teeth was like freshly fallen snow.
He opened his arms in an inviting sweep. “My son.”
E’Malkai neared him, but did not embrace him.
“Father, why are you here?”
Seth brought his arms to his side and his smile disappeared. “I have come because you are lost, E’Malkai. You have forgotten many things since you passed into…”
Dok’Turmel, the muted voices whispered.
The youth could not here the name of the place in which he was trapped. It was as if his father’s words were erased as he spoke the true name of the place.
“I am E’Malkai, son of Seth Armen, vessel of the Believer, messiah to a people who will never know me for who I am,” he responded without hesitation.
His father nodded sadly. “You are all those things, but there is something else, something that your mind will not allow you to see. The answer that you seek, the one to the question which plagues you, is that your intentions are pure.”
E’Malkai looked at his father strangely. “My intentions?”
Seth smiled again and approached his son. “Yes, that is the question that burns inside you. Whether or not you will take the power and change it as Ryan had done, pervert it in such a way that it no longer resembles what had been given to you.” Seth paced around his son, the two lonely figures at the center of the calm, listless tundra. “Or will you use it wisely? Accept the power of the Original Creator and amend those deeds done wrong by my brother, your uncle.”
E’Malkai followed his father as he walked around him, spinning to face him. “You speak madness. What power? I am the Believer, not a bearer of the strangeness of which you speak.”
Dok’Turmel, the muted voices whispered once more.
“…changes what you are, ages you in irreparable ways. To be a mortal and walk across the ever-changing pathways confuses why you had gone there in the first place. The thought of a moment becomes the regret of ages ago,” continued the visage of Seth.
He shimmered, revealing his translucent nature.
E’Malkai turned.
“This is all so strange. I do not understand your concern. I do not have to make such a choice. I am what I am. I cannot change what I will become,” he cried, the defeat in his voice wavered.
Seth reached out and grasped his son by the shoulders, shaking him as he tightened his grip. “That is what the darkness wishes you to believe. If you truly think that you do not have a choice, then they will have won. You will be taken as my brother was and used until the dark tsang eats you from the inside out, leaving a shell of what you were,” spoke Seth with renewed vigor, holding his son’s gaze as he spoke.
“No,” refuted E’Malkai, pushing himself away from his father. “That cannot be. I am the Believer; my purpose is already written.”
Seth would not relent.
The skies above crashed into shadow.
The tundra beneath their feet became white sand at its edges, threatening to overtake them. Even the image of E’Malkai changed, the wraps had faded and he stood bare-chested, the claw marks evident once more. “Time is slipping, I will soon fade from here and you will return to…” Dok‘Turmel. “You must hear my words. They will keep you from turning against what you believe.”
The world crumbled away.
Skies faded to darkness and blood, writhing against one another like lovers in a gothic embrace. The ground became white and golden sands. Father and son stood upon a jagged mountaintop. The world below was filled with the dark red eyes of shadow beasts.
E’Malkai looked wildly at the ground beneath him, to the fading image of his father. “It is my choice, the intention is mine to choose,” he whispered.
His father nodded.
The visage of his face was partially hidden.
Then as it faded away, the youth reached to touch it.
*
E’Malkai snapped up.
The end of the dream rocked him from his slumber like an earthquake. The blade that he held in his hand was gripped so tightly that his knuckles were white. He blinked several times as tears had sprung from them and trailed down his cheek. He wiped them away with the dry skin of his forearm. The pain and the anguish of his wounds ached for the first time. Rest had made him profoundly aware of the rigors of his journey.
He pushed himself up to his full height.
Looking down the rocky hillside, he saw the blood eyes of the panther staring back at him. The beast was not deterred by the presence of the blade. The glint seemed to amplify in its eyes, growing hungrily. The green tentacle that was its tongue licked its jaws in anticipation.
Your intent is pure.
You have nothing to fear.
His father’s words echoed in his mind. It could have been a dream, or perhaps a hallucination of this strange place, but the words were powerful.
He looked to his father’s blade and smiled.
The howl of the beast woke the youth and the smile was quickly replaced with horror. The creature scaled the walls as if it did not need to find an anchor in order to propel its body forward. Fear seeped in, coursing through his body like venom. He closed his eyes, finding the sheath and replacing the blade there with a controlled sigh. As he opened them again, the shadow beast’s eyes crested the smooth platform.
The youth backed away, flattening against the wall. He opened his mouth to speak, the words hoarse. His throat was drier than the desert he had run through. “My intentions….”
He reached out with his hands as the shadow creature neared. His father’s words were so close to him now; they thundered in his mind like a strange spoken-word symphony. The panther stood in front of E’Malkai, dark teeth barred. It stalked toward him, a short distance separating them.
Fla
ttening its body, it prepared to pounce.
He opened his eyes suddenly, as if provoked. Power surged through him as it had done within the Fallen and in the halls of the House of Di’letirich when he had fought Fe’rein. His mouth opened, a glow from within replaced the barren cavity that had been incapable of speech.
“I am E’Malkai, bearer of the power of the Ai’mun’hereun, and my intentions are pure.” His words billowed from his mouth like waves. Powerful strokes of energy rippled from him, passing over the shadow creature as it leapt. E’Malkai stood as tall as he could then; his chest pushed out, his arms raised only slightly. The muscles of his lithe frame tensed as he prepared for the attack.
The shadow creature passed through him as if he were nothing more than a gust of wind, and then disappeared into the rock. The rocky walls of the hillside disappeared. E’Malkai stood upon the white sands of the desert he had witnessed when he first walked through the portal.
He looked around and saw the apparition approach him once more. “I see that you have come to understand the importance of intention,” he mused as he neared the youth.
E’Malkai sat down in the sand, ignoring the heat and crossing his legs. He looked up into the dark skies once again. The blood red had dispersed and been replaced by pure shadow.
He looked around with a labored sigh.
Laying back into the sand, he allowed his mind to pause; to relent from what would not end. “It would appear that I have at that, Darien the Betrayer. But had I not, the panther would have taken my head from my shoulders.”
“It would have at that, and for good reason. The power is already wielded by one who is both unworthy and consumed in the fires of the darkness. To allow one to pass into the Grove would be pure folly.”
E’Malkai groaned as he forced himself to a sitting position. “The Grove. That is where the Shaman told me that I must go. Can you take me there?”
The image shivered slightly at the mention of the Grove on the mortal’s lips. “I am not a guide.”
“Do you know where the Grove is?”
The apparition paused, the shards still. “I can show you a path that leads to the gates of the Grove. Be warned: there is one who stands before the entrance to the Grove. He is only one who can show you how to find the true power.”
E’Malkai pushed himself to his feet and dusted the sand from his hands. “Then lead away. The longer I am here, the more likely it is that I will never be able to leave,” he called as he turned his back.
The apparition did not follow.
“Your path is not that way.”
E’Malkai craned his neck to see the apparition and nearly jumped, for he was right behind him. He reached out with a ghastly hand and reached through the youth, incorporeal fingers passing out his back.
Darien looked ahead with a blank expression as the white glow surrounded them both. Filtering from E’Malkai’s face, it flowed up into the darkened skies of Dok’Turmel. The vortex created by their bridging echoed like thunder across the sandy dunes. And with that they vanished into the humid air of the underworld.
ⱷ
Carlyle
Lieutenant Carlyle knew, as he walked into the drafty pass, that death waited for him. It was the same lingering aura that waited for him if he returned without an answer: the High Marshal would take his head from his shoulders.
This was the thought that brought the lieutenant’s hands to his neck, touching the tender flesh gingerly. He rounded the tight corner that gave him only inches to spare as he pressed his back against it, looking down into the gray swirling mass of clouds beneath.
The High Marshal had demanded a thousand men accompany him; it would have taken hours to move them along the three-quarter mile stretch that led along the cliff edge. Carlyle shook his head as he imagined Kyien trying to get his mount through the pass. A smile crept across his features despite the dire situation in which he found himself.
The corner itself was nothing more than a sharp outcropping of rock that was chiseled to a flat point, making what lay beyond it a complete mystery. Kyien retracted the order only moments after he had spoken. Instead, he told the lieutenant to investigate alone; Kyien needed the majority of the infantry for a push on the Illigard forces deeper within the cavern.
Fool, he thought to himself.
Sometimes it seemed beyond the lieutenant how a man like Kyien had been given so much power and influence. He drew his rifle from around his shoulders as he flattened himself against the edge. Holding his breath as he felt the sickening sensation of gravity pulling against him, he wondered if it would be the horrific winds that pulled him to a plummeting death.
What lay on the other side almost made him gag.
The soldiers who had been ambushed had not been moved. Bodies were strewn about like heaps of flesh. The majority of the blood had frozen the forms together in a tangled mass that could have been art had it not been so macabre.
The lieutenant placed his free hand over his face as he prodded the dead bodies with the point of his rifle. He turned away in disgust as he saw the open-mouthed screams that were painted across the soldiers’ faces.
Carlyle could not believe his eyes as he stepped over the dead men, his eyes transfixed by the estranged look upon their stricken faces. He turned again and nearly screamed as a man stood before him, only a few feet away.
He was a young man.
Flowing dark hair and piercing blues eyes silenced the lieutenant. His body was consumed in fire, white and emerald intertwined. He pointed toward Carlyle and motioned for him to come forward. His hold on his weapon faltered and then fell free, dipping into the snow that had collected in the lapse of violence.
Carlyle’s own voice surprised him as he spoke.
“Are you the Believer?”
The being smiled.
“I bring a message,” replied the crystalline figure.
Carlyle lowered himself, but the man caught him.
Ushering him to his feet, his smile did not fade.
“What can I do?”
“I am the way. You do not need this war any longer. Walk away from it before it consumes you as it has already consumed so many,” returned the voice with grace.
Carlyle stared, his lips quivering as he watched with incredulity.
Tears streamed down the soldier’s face.
“I am your humble servant.”
His mind was taken that easily. There were no barriers to tear down, for the man was nothing more than a shell. His enlistment in the Culouth army had brought him only hardship and pain.
The figure placed his hand on the soldier’s head as he spoke. “The Final War is the end of an era of pain and suffering that has plagued the people of Terra. I have come to wash away the tears and bloodshed from this war. I will bring about a new peace, one that all can embrace.”
The soldier looked up, his glassy eyes fixated on the visage.
“I wish to spread the word of your coming. What is it that I may call you?”
He stared at the shrunken figure of the lieutenant. “I am called by many names, but you may say that the Ai’mun’hereun has returned. Tell them I walk among you again.”
The man who had once been a worn soldier of a defunct army raised himself to his full height; he now had a purpose. “I, Winchester Carlyle, servant of the Ai’mun’hereun, will spread your word. All of Terra will be untied in peace and prosperity under your teachings.”
The visage shimmered and disappeared. Carlyle, former lieutenant of the Lower Plane, remained. His glazed, incoherent stare seemed the part of convalescence.
ⱷ
Higald
Higald watched the yellow-striped soldier carefully as he dropped his weapon as if his arms had gone numb. He grew worried as the man began to talk into the snowy winds, lowering himself to the ground and then standing once more.
He felt the stony grip of his hilt, but decided against drawing; it seemed the man had gone mad from war. The Fallen chieftain could not bring h
imself to kill a man who could not separate reality from fiction. Pushing off the flat, cold rock on which he was perched, he looked down once more. The kneeling man mumbled and turned away from the apex of the rock formations where the battles raged among those still fit for war.
ⱷ
Kyien
Kyien had taken his place at the front line of the first cavern when the sound of screaming men echoed across the encampment. The clustered halls remained civil for a moment, and as that moment passed so did the sanity of those involved. The length of the cavern from its mouth to the foot of the decline into the second level was roughly six hundred feet. As the screeching of the dying men filled the cavern, it was as if it had shrunk to only a foot.
Fear spread like an airborne contagion.
Pale hunters appeared.
Their white and gray furs were a contrast to the yellow-striped garb of Culouth, making them stand out. It should have served as a beacon at which others would fire. It did not have the desired effect as the tundra people ripped through the Culouth army like a hurricane upon virgin shores.
Kyien watched in horror as men fell left and right without so much as a burst fired. The ranks of the tundra people pushed through like a swarm of locusts. It was at that moment the High Marshal realized he was trapped.
ⱷ
T’elen
There was an undefinable sense that grew to an incredible acuity in warriors, if given enough time: the sense of when the enemy was at its lowest. At that very moment T’elen felt Kyien’s plight and knew that the time for them to strike was at hand.
Xi’iom and Elcites sat on the ground, their backs against the wall as they played cards without much enthusiasm. As the Field Marshal leapt to her feet in a sudden fit, both were eagerly at her side. The wall of human bodies had been abandoned as it was without a doubt the most absurd and disgusting spectacle that any of them had ever witnessed.